All That You Hear
by Pyroclast17
Summary: John's impatience to see Sherlock again means he is left waiting longer than intended. The silence is deafening and although he isn't alone, he has never been more secluded. Two-part story.
1. Shades Passing Through

It was absolutely quiet when death consumed him. Death had been welcomed with open arms, had been beckoned forwards to take this unhappy man earlier than was intended.

Death left him with silence and whiteness, but also the gift of understanding. He realised that he had been seeing life through a filter for every breath he took, as if cold-day steam had hovered about him from birth.

He understood what his life had meant; how fleeting and monumental his presence on that floating, chaotic rock had been. He understood that he didn't matter at all. He was more humbled than insulted by that thought. He knew his place in creation.

He knew that he must wait before moving on.

All around him were people, no more than shades to him, waiting just as he was. Sometimes there were incomplete families holding hands, often elderly folk tapping at the invisible ground with walking sticks. Sometimes he noticed a solitary little girl skipping among the other shades as though they were merely bushes on the heath she used to play on. He shut his eyes against tired soldiers cleaning their guns or wiping sweat from their foreheads.

New shades arrived every moment. Some stood about for a while, taking everything in, others stumbled about shouting without making noise, convinced they had been thrown headlong down to hell.

Then there were the lucky ones. The ones who didn't have to wait, because someone else had been waiting in their stead. They would share a look, a smile, a hug or a kiss and would begin to fade into the whiteness. Their faces always shone with blissful acceptance and utter happiness.

John Watson had arrived, had understood, and immediately assumed he would not have to wait at all. He had come here with the intention of seeing Him again, and life be damned if he missed his chance at one last look.

He was left waiting. For an eternity it seemed, he stood where he had appeared, expecting to see Him and for them to fade away together. It didn't happen. He went searching then, calling out without working vocal chords, lips moving faster and faster as panic settled in.

The panic passed, the sadness came along, and then the waiting. The people spotting. John knew so many people now that he had never even seen while on planet Earth; he knew their ways and habits without even exchanging so much as a mouthed word.

One day the sadness jumped back in. A new shade spilled into the no-space, with the slouched posture and sour expression of a woman who had had a few too many.

_"Harry?"_

John stood with the speed of sunlight and ran to his sister in horror. She was still gazing about herself, face scrunched up at the overwhelming nature of it all. She eventually faced John and nodded. He smiled with teary eyes and nodded back.

And the waiting started all over again.


	2. Hold On, We'll Fall Asleep

There is no sleep there. It's a shame, because simply standing around waiting feels too much like real life for some people. It was disgustingly tiring, and there was no relief from it.

John took to lying on his back and staring straight upwards at the blankness. Harry often lay by him if she wasn't off pestering old men for hip flasks that turned out to hold no liquids within.

Hours passed with boredom threatening the very foundations of the doctor's soul. It hardly helped that his "comrades" were experiencing the same thing. A small group of ne'er do wells were passing about cigarette after cigarette, throwing themselves backward in boredom-induced tantrums. A middle-aged man scratched at his withering hair and gnawed at a pencil he kept hidden in the breast pocket of his third-best shirt.

The little girl John had been watching play eventually grew tired of her game, and shuffled on her knees towards a new mother and her baby, whom she held close in a brightly coloured sling. They couldn't talk to each other, due to the lack of sound and the language barrier, but the woman smiled and attempted to comb her fingers through the child's hair. But the girl was only a shade to her, so her fingertips touched air instead of scalp. Her eyes scrunched in frustration and the beginnings of despair, but the younger giggled inaudibly and beamed like it was Christmas morning.

Harry would wave to catch his attention and proceeded to express her irritation through pained faces and the stamping of feet. He would watch her blankly until she gave up and sat back down.

Once, John grew so fed up that he strolled over to the group of exhausted soldiers and sat with them, exchanging unspoken stories through their sickening wounds, and hand signals. He even learned their names as they went around the circle tapping Norse code against their rifles. Trevor got a massive piece of shrapnel in his spine. Joshua bled out from a bullet wound in his thigh. Siobhan stood on a land mine. Lokir was stabbed in the gut by his own commanding officer.

The questioning glances fell on John's shoulder. Trust them to know it wasn't fatal. He gave a weak smile and shrugged, pretending to take Joshua's hand gun, and put it to his own head. He tried to laugh at the stunned faces, but his smile melted away. He looked at the ground for a moment before abruptly getting to his feet and escaping.

Harry gave a sympathetic half-smile when he slumped down by her side, knees drawn up to his chin. His sister took in his posture and sighed. _He clings on even in death._

oOoOoOoOo

He looked a little older, John noticed. Darkened crows' feet, wisps of grey curls along the hairline, a deeper frown than ever before.

There was a slash cut across his once-crisp wine red shirt, followed underneath by a deep crimson and brown gash all the way across his side and stomach. But it was still _him_- and the doctor could not hold back a ragged gasp at the sight of his best friend.

Sherlock took in his situation without so much as a grunt of approval or disgust. He hadn't thought that an afterlife even existed, but as he processed everything, he couldn't find it in himself to be in any way surprised. The conventional idea of purgatory had been accurate, and there was no point in fretting about what so clearly _was_. The detective shucked his coat on properly and took a step forward.

John hoped that his burning gaze alone would be enough to catch the brilliant man's attention. He had not expected-

"SHERLOCK!"

_What on Earth? _

The doctor gripped at his throat. He hummed. He sang a bit of some Abba song that he had forgotten the name of. He introduced himself with his military titles. And heard all of it.

He heard echoed steps coming in his direction. His heartbeat. His tortured breathes.

"John?"

There was that _voice_.

"John, your head..."

The deep, rich sound of aural _chocolate_ flowed into his ears, and he couldn't help it. His arms were around the taller man (_He's solid, he's not a ghost like all the others_), and for all the money and happiness in the world he could not let go.

"It's you. You're finally here."

Those long fingers stroked across the short crop of greying blonde.

"So keen for me to die? I'm offended." He had been smiling, but upon wriggling away and seeing John's evolving expression, he winced. The happiness had changed to white-hot rage.

"I thought you were dead."

"John, let me explain-"

"I've been on my own for God knows how long because of you!"

Sherlock reached his hand out to calm him, but it was swiped away. In a flash of blinding fury and pain and complete relief, Sherlock found his head trapped between two strong hands, pulling him to John's lips.

His fingernails clawed at the wool beneath him in response to John's angry kiss. The doctor let out a guttural screech of frustration that muffled into Sherlock's mouth, and then he slumped to the ground, trying and failing not to sob away his annoyances. Sherlock lowered himself and kept a firm grasp on his blogger's shoulder.

oOoOoOoOo

They couldn't figure out what was wrong. They were missing the interaction that brought on the transition, or the "light". It had seemed pretty simple for everybody else, yet the two were still there, bewildered.

Sherlock observed everybody in their immediate vacinity in search of some clue. For too long there was no development, and he felt his brain beginning to rot from boredom. Hour after hour he watched their neighbours until _there_-

A teenage girl seeped into being, and was bombarded by another, taller young woman. He watched them talking- couldn't hear them, to his annoyance -before they held out their smallest fingers and hooked them in a gesture that Sherlock knew was childishly named a "pinkie promise". _How idiotic._

To the detective's (almost) surprise, the girls vanished into the white.

_Oh! Obvious! _

It was so simple, but of course it would be the one insignificant thing to evade his thoughts.

"Sentiment is the key, John. An interaction that means something to both of us personally."

The doctor looked up with glazed eyes and nodded half-heartedly. "Okay...?"

Sherlock's memories played like a film in his mind, and he paused them _there_. The last hours they spent together, just before the fall.

Sherlock held his palm flat for his blogger to hold.

"Take my hand."

John stared at his extended fingers, and hesitantly grasped them in his own. Their eyes met and held.

From some way off, Harry could see them. She sorrowfully waved goodbye to her brother and turned away.

The two- Sherlock and John, Boffin and Bachelor -smiled at each other in welcome and goodbye.


End file.
